PG&E’s Seismic Survey: The Opposition

In June 2011, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) announced that they would be applying to conduct a high-energy offshore seismic survey off the coast of San Luis Obispo. PG&E hopes that this survey might help to prevent a nuclear disaster at their Diablo nuclear plant similar to that which occurred in Fukushima, Japan last year. Similar seismic testing has been done in several other parts of the world and has been associated with the disruption of marine wildlife by some experts.

The Surfrider Foundation recently began a campaign opposing this testing. Stefanie Sekich-Quinn, California Policy Manager for Surfrider says that the organization thought long and hard about the proposed testing before taking a stance. “We wanted to be very mindful about how we approached this, but unfortunately the more we started digging, the more we found that really gave us huge concerns.

The proposed seismic testing originally entailed towing a quarter-mile-wide array of underwater “air cannons” that emit 250 decibel blasts into the ocean every 15 seconds for 12 days. For reference, a leaf-blower emits a sound of around 115 decibels. For those who attended Fleet Week in San Francisco this past weekend, a jet plane 100 feet away emits a sound equivalent to 135 decibels. A 12-guage shotgun blast has an intensity of 165 decibels.

The proposal has since been amended to include “ramp-up periods”, which would space out the testing over the course of 2-3 years. It was amended in hopes of scaring sea life out of the area before the louder seismic blasts occur.

Sekich-Quinn outlined three primary reasons for opposing PG&E’s proposal: clear and imminent harms to marine wildlife, likely harms to human recreationalists in the area, and the possibility that this testing will not be very informative in the end. “PG&E’s Environmental Impact Report (EIR) clearly states that there will be significant and unavoidable impacts to marine life,” says Sekich-Quinn. Since this testing is unprecedented in the area and since marine wildlife can be extremely difficult to consistently locate and track, the amount of harm that will be done to the ecosystem is hard to effectively estimate.

That said, similar testing has been done in other places. Between January and April of this year, an offshore oil survey was conducted using air cannons. On April 4th, 615 dolphins washed ashore. April 4th’s count is only a fraction of the final reported casualties. Thirty of the dolphins had fractured middle-ears. Much of the wildlife had cell damage resulting from bubbles associated with decompression sickness (known to divers as the bends). Sekich-Quinn notes that “The Navy has documented that when they do sonar testing that there has been weird changes in behavior in animals and that some would breach.” When divers ascend at the end of a dive, they have to ascend slowly so that they don’t get the bends. It is possible that the sounds from the testing caused some of these dolphins to ascend too quickly and faint or die as a result. However, the Peruvian government has denied that this dolphin die-off was a result of seismic surveys.

The second concern is of an even more immediate concern to humans. “Some beaches in the area would receive very high decibel levels (about 160) that would impact ocean users. The Navy has done testing on high decibel levels in the water and what that would look like to humans and they verified that the safe threshold and conservative estimate of what a human can take is about 145, so it’s well over what the Navy has identified as a safe level,” warns Sekich-Quinn. She also points out that PG&E glossed over the impact to recreationalists in their EIR. “If people are in the water recreating, they could come out feeling dizzy or have some damage to sensitive organs.”

The final concern adding to Surfrider’s opposition is that the survey will not give PG&E enough information to justify such dangerous testing. In a letter to the California Coastal Commission, Surfrider claims that “new seismic surveys will not improve seismic safety estimates.” Sekich-Quinn elaborates, “Experts have told us that they’ll only receive marginal improvement of the information they already have, and the biggest thing they want to figure out you can’t actually do with this kind of testing.” Any new information gained from this survey is unnecessary for worst-case scenario modelling.

What can I do?

A concerned citizen has several avenues of opposition should he or she choose to act. The first is to send a letter to the Coastal Commission asking them to deny the project. Additionally, Surfrider’s Monterey chapter is organizing carpools to a meeting in November. Finally, Sekich-Quinn encourages everyone to write a letter to the editor of the Sentinel or any other local newspaper in order to spread the word. Every contribution helps!

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6 comments on “PG&E’s Seismic Survey: The Opposition”

This is so tragic! An Criminal, These Dolphins died on my birthday! I am freaked out buy all the cruelty these life forms and creatures go through do to the stupidity and unenforced protection of our oceans life! I am so very sad. Please stop this. Shelly Taylor Registered Recovery Worker Student Local California Tax Payer

I am writing to ask that you deny PG&E’s Seismic Survey that is under review. There is much evidence of the damage done by seismic testing, and that alone is reason enough to deny. More importantly, PG&E is not to be trusted with the resources of California. Their negligent maintenance practice related to Gas Delivery lines was demonstrated with the explosion and subsequent fire in San Bruno, CA.

PG&E is a Monopoly and by its very nature is a danger to all citizens in its service area. Do not allo wthem to proceed with this reckless and ill-thought test.

This project is simply inexcusable. There is little or no scientific data to be gained, and the environmental consequences are obvious. Significant harm WILL occur to the environment and possibly to humans, and the harm to animals is brutal, painful, and inescusable, and will ultimately end in horrific death for many animals. Some or all of this area is a protected area (or will be if NOAA extends the Marine Santuary from border to border as it proposes). If an individual proposed such a project instead of PG&E, there is no way it would even be entertained, much less approved. Regulations in the Sanctuary ban the use of personal watercraft because a single mammal might get hit at some point. This project could very well take out every sea otter, dolphin, and whale in the area, not to mention fish and crab species. NEPA and CEQA require mitigation and alternative options for all projects with potential environmental damage. Due to the obvious significant impact of this proposal, the alternative is obvious: do not let the project proceed. The reality is that a bunch of ignorant regulators set up an unrealistic hurdle to PG&E’s continued operation of a nuclear plant, ironically, in an effort to protect the environment. If they had not made the further fault assessment a requirement, this would never even be on the table. PG&E proposed this to meet that hurdle. It is a ridiculous proposal and should be denied, they could improve their fault assessments just as well with computer enhancement studies. Send it back toPG&E and the regulators and tell them to find a solution to licensing this plant that does not involve devastating the environment.

And let’s be realistic here. Do you think they will find anything that will actually be used to IMPROVE environmental protection from the nuclear plant? Do you think this study will actually CHANGE any decision made regading this plant?

Really??? For your info there are small faults we can see now with modern seismic technology. It’s not so much to protect the environment as it is for protecting you miss guided morons. #1 problem is there never should have built any nuke plants near the pacific rim. So you people would rather sacrifice you and your families??? This study is to determine wither or not the plant should be decommissioned instead of just being “off line” Wouldn’t you rather have the plant decommissioned? I know it’s tough to deal with the possible sea life issues but the place is built and now we have to shut it down.

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November 24, 2018Starts at 12:00 PM11/24/2018
12:00 PM -Overview - Capitola Main Beach Surfing Santa arrives with his outrigger canoe and surfboard on the shores of Capitola Main [...]

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November 24, 2018

Starts at 12:00 PM

11/24/2018 12:00 PM –

Overview – Capitola Main Beach Surfing Santa arrives with his outrigger canoe and surfboard on the shores of Capitola Main Beach at 12 noon. Be sure to bring your Christmas list and a camera to capture Santa’s wave-riding arrival. Once Santa has toweled off, he’ll settle in his beach chair to hear holiday wishes and have a nice long visit with all of the children.

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A group of UC Santa Cruz undergraduate students are hosting both a film festival and an ambitious art installation this fall at the Seymour Marine Discovery Center, and [...]

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A group of UC Santa Cruz undergraduate students are hosting both a film festival and an ambitious art installation this fall at the Seymour Marine Discovery Center, and both events are open to the public. The students aim to showcase local conservation efforts in Monterey Bay, as well as the damage done to the ocean by single-use plastics.

For months, students in Professor Don Croll’s Marine Conservation Biology course at UC Santa Cruz have worked to develop self-directed four-minute documentary shorts. The films cover topics across the conservation spectrum—from fish hatcheries, to marine mammal rescues, to California condor recovery—all focused on conservation work happening in the Monterey Bay area right now. Join us on Saturday, December 1 at 1 PM at the Seymour Center to see the films and celebrate the work of the next generation of marine conservationists.

The whale of a weekend continues with the unveiling of an art installation––inside the famous blue whale skeleton, an icon of Santa Cruz. The installation, made of non-recyclable, single-use plastics, is an effort to highlight unseen effects of plastic pollution and to illuminate ways to stop trash flowing into the ocean. From Friday, November 30 through Thursday, December 6, the installation will hang under the ribcage of the big blue whale at the Seymour Center. The students are inviting members of the community to come see the whale, and share their impressions and images on social media using the tag #whaleofaproblem.

The students’ message is two-fold: stop the use of single-use plastics by switching to reusable containers, and prevent non-recyclable plastics from entering the recycle stream. In collaboration with the Santa Cruz Resource Recovery Facility, the students aim to focus on non-recyclable plastics, which can cause significant problems for efficient recycling.

“A surprising amount of plastics put into recycling bins cannot be recycled,” said Croll, faculty in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department. “The worst offenders are those “clamshell” plastic containers from grocery stores––they’re everywhere, and can really foul up the recycle stream.”

Many of the undergraduate students will be on hand throughout the weekend to provide information and answer questions. “Many Santa Cruz residents may already know that we have a whale of a problem, but they don’t know what they can do about it,” said Grace Reed, a fourth year student in the course. “Our installation will highlight the unseen effects of plastic pollution and let people know what they can do to stop it.”

The 87-foot blue whale skeleton is one of the largest skeletons of its kind worldwide and is often affectionately referred to as “Ms. Blue.” The immense female whale died of unknown causes and washed ashore near Pescadero in 1979.

ABOUT THE SEYMOUR CENTER: Overlooking the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, the Seymour Center is a “living classroom” featuring exhibits, aquariums, touch pools, whale skeletons, full-scale elephant seal models, the Ocean Discovery Shop, and unsurpassed ocean vistas. The aquariums and exhibits feature the everyday tools of ocean exploration and focus on research conducted by scientists locally and around the world. Interactive stations provide hands-on learning experiences, and docents lead tours and bring marine science to life. The Seymour Center is open Tuesday–Sunday, 10 AM–5 PM, and every day in July and August.

WHAT: A Whale of a Weekend: Art Installation and Marine Conservation Film Festival